


From Bad To Worse (or, What Khydann Did On Her Winter Vacation)

by elynne



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 09:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynne/pseuds/elynne
Summary: This is the story explaining why Khydann has been missing from the Wolfmane Tribe for a couple of months, presented in the form of a spoken testimony to some nameless Horde official.





	From Bad To Worse (or, What Khydann Did On Her Winter Vacation)

I, Khydann Wanderer, do swear and attest that the following is true and accurate to the best of my recollection, by the light of An'she and Mu'sha.

Well, this all starts off when I went to Orgrimmar on a shopping run, and was contacted by... a friend. My friend won't be prosecuted if I name him, right? Okay, my friend Aellinth, who gave me a message from a mutual friend Rajakumadi. We all used to be in the same mercenary unit together, Bad Moon Rising, but it's been gone for a long time now. The message was that Raja had set something on fire and gotten arrested, again. Since we don't have the unit to bail us out any more, those of us who are still in touch kind of have to look out for each other, so Aellinth contacted me. Between us we had access to plenty of gold, but it wasn't the kind of situation that we could just bail Raja out of, so we decided to try breaking him out instead.

Aellinth got me some black fur dye to disguise myself as a Grimtotem, to make sure I wasn't identified. Since I wasn't sure if I'd be sent to the right prison if I just got myself arrested, I snuck into a transport pen and locked myself in during the night. None of the orcs said anything, and the guards didn't really notice one more prisoner. The next day I was brought to the mine under Krom'gar Fortress, in Stonetalon. Windshear Mine, that's the one. It used to be Silverlode Mine or something, didn't it? I guess it doesn't matter.

There weren't as many prisoners in the mine as I had expected. Most of the workers were orc peons, and there were only a score or so of prisoners, but the peons were treated about the same. The only difference was that the prisoners had large weights chained to our ankles, and we had a few more guards. And the guards beat the peons more, since they were less likely to fight back.

After a week or so, with Aellinth sneaking in and out to help, we'd come up with a plan to get the peons drunk and break ourselves out. But before we could set up the breakout, Raja and I, and a half-dozen other prisoners, were woken up in the middle of our sleep shift and herded out of the mine at swordpoint, by the guards Brognak and Zarkul. It was dark when we got out of the mine, and we were quickly shoved onto a covered cart and taken away. A couple of cultists--a dwarf and I think a human, but I couldn't tell under the purple robes--got into the cart with us and told us if we made any noise they'd kill us. They took off the iron chains and replaced them with fel iron, that itched and burned and made us feel weak and sick. I'm pretty sure we went around the edge of the battleground--I could hear fighting, mechs crashing and exploding--and then we went into a cave.

I don't know where the pass is, but there's at least one that goes through the mountains and lets out into the forest in Ashenvale. I do know it's partially blocked, though; we stopped once and had to get out of the wagon and move rocks out of the way, then after the cart went through the gap we put the rocks back, to make it look like a cave-in. We went on through the tunnel a while longer, then we had to get out and do the same thing with moving rocks, to make it look like a cave-in on the other side, and then I could smell and hear that we came out into the forest.

We went through the forest very slowly, because the cultists could only travel at night, and the route was convoluted--I guess they had to go around patrols, or where they could bribe their way through. One night I overheard one of them say that they were taking us to the master's glaive, whatever that is, and that they would have "a big sacrifice" and "sell the leftovers to the naga," and I knew we had to escape before we got there or we'd all be killed. But we were all so weak, and they were watching us closely.

Finally, after... I don't know, two weeks? I was dozing in the wagon, and it came to a stop. I heard voices outside--nothing very unusual about that, but the voices got louder, angry orc voices. After a couple of minutes our guards got out of the wagon, and I heard fighting, with weapons and magic. I knew it was probably our only chance. All of us, the prisoners, shoved our way out of the back of the wagon. Two immediately hobbled off, dragging their fel chains. Raja started conjuring fire. I called into the forest, and was lucky to get the attention and assistance of a bear nearby. We came around to the front of the cart with the others who were able and willing to fight, and saw that the cultists were fighting with an orc patrol group. They were about evenly matched in numbers, but the cultists had magic and the soldiers were surprised, and more patrollers were falling than cultists. Then Raja set a couple of cultists on fire--and the wagon. I set the bear on the cultists and grabbed a tree branch to start hitting them with. The others found weapons on fallen bodies, or tree branches or whatever they had at hand, and in a few moments we'd turned the tide. The remaining cultists fled, or were shot by the patrollers. We were loaded back onto the wagon and taken to the patrollers' camp.

They had to use the wagon to get us to Zoramgar Outpost, but we were able to go faster--traveling in daylight, with an armed escort, and using the roads, so it only took a day to get there. Once we got to the outpost we told our stories again, and the smith there was able to get the damn fel chains off us. Then you showed up, brought us to Orgrimmar, and here we are, telling the story yet again while we recover. And we're all getting pardons in exchange for our bravery in fighting the cultists, and the information to arrest the cultist-friendly guards in the mine. I just want to make sure that part is written out too, then I'll sign this. Okay, we're good.

Signed,  
((scrawled semi-legible signature of "Khydann Wanderer"))


End file.
